STATE OF PUNJAB Vs. GURCHARAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) WHETHER higher educational qualifications are a valid basis of classification for the purpose of the grant of a higher pay scale within the same service is the significant common question which arises in these five connected cases before the Full Bench.

(2.) THE bare matrix of facts - necessary for the consideration of the pristinely legal issue may be picked from R.S.A. No. 1712 of 1973 (State of Punjab v. Gurcharan Singh). Gurcharan Singh was an employee of the erstwhile State of Pepsu as a Library Restorer in the Central State Library, Patiala, in the grade of Rs. 421/2 -2 -62. On the subsequent merger of Pepsu with Punjab, he became an employee of the Punjab Government in the same scale. Later, on the formation of the new States of Punjab and Haryana with effect from November 1, 1966, he was allocated to the State of Punjab in the Grade of 45 -2 -75. However, the Punjab Government revised the grade of Library Restorers from 45 -2 -75 to 100 -4 -140 -5 -80, but imposed a specific condition that an employee who was Matriculate with a certificate of Library Science would alone be entitled to the revised grade. Since Gurcharan Singh Respondent was only a Matriculate, he was denied the revised grade and, therefore, filed a suit to claim a declaration that he was entitled thereto because the classification made by the State Government in the revised grade was arbitrary, illegal and violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India, The trial Court dismissed the suit, but on appeal, the lower appellate Court allowed the appeal and decreed the same primarily on the basis of the Division Bench judgment of this Court in The State of Punjab and Anr. v. Lekh Raj Bowry and Ors., 1967 S.L.R. 816. The State of Punjab then preferred the Second Appeal, which originally came up before my learned brother G.C. Mital, J. Noticing a conflict of precedent within this Court and also that the observations in Lekh Raj Bowry's case (supra) may no longer be tenable in view of the subsequent decision of the final Court he proposed the consideration of the case by a larger Bench, -vide his lucid reference order,. In the connected set of four Civil Writ Petitions it was argued before the Division Bench in CWP No. 493 of 1982 -Om Parkash v. State of Haryana that the view expressed in State of Haryana v. Jagdish Singh and Ors. 1983. SLR 60., was in conflict , with the earlier one in Lekh Raj Bowry's case (supra) and, therefore, the matter was admitted for hearing by a Full Bench.

(3.) PERHAPS at the very threshold, we may pointedly notice that the issue herein appears to us as so squarely covered by a catena of binding precedent and an equally missive - weight of persuasive judgments that it would be a sheer exercise in futility to examine the matter on first principles. However, there is no gainsaying the fact that there did appear earlier a few discordant notes within this jurisdiction as also in other High Courts till the matter was settled beyond cavil by the final Court itself.